Classic Poem

Amid the roofless walls of a gray pile,
Built long of yore,
When the huge rocks told of the giant style
Emperilled now no more,
Which Earth's large-handed children strove to raise erewhile
From the plain up to the high cerulean floor;

There on a crumbling mass, which once had been
Ponderous stone,
And gazing dimly on the antique scene,
His tottering hall and throne,
Now carpeted with a sweeping pall of ivy green
I saw grim Ruin sitting in thought alone.

His eye o'erlooked the ocean and the land
Well as the pile,
For a huge globe before him aye did stand
Presenting human toil,
And when he saw domes shake, or ships bilge on the strand,
Seemed the fell despot even in his heart to smile!

His wiry locks were iron-gray, or brown,
Spun from the mine,
And his hard features cast into one frown
Iron in every line!
His brow was loaden with a spiked iron crown,
And his rude sceptre swang like an iron pine.

This ever and anon upon a rock,
Iron of sound,
With listless force yet heavily he strook,
So that re-echoing round
His topple-headed palace like a forest shook
And its foundations trembled beneath the ground.

This is the blow that crumbles works of Art
After their prime,
Which continent from continent doth part,
And breaks the chain of clime,
This is the stroke we feel, deadly upon the heart,
Prostrating all to the tyrant son of Time!